J&J's Addition Of JLABS in New York City Creates Buzz At BIO CEO 2018

By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL

When invited to host the BIO Buzz Center during the 2018 BIO CEO & Investor Conference in New York City on behalf of Life Science Leader magazine, I did not know who I’d be interviewing, just that I’d be doing video interviews with a number of top industry executives. One of the people I met with was Kate Merton, Ph.D., head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s newly created JLABS in New York City. This latest JLABS addition is the company’s eighth incubator, and will be housed at the New York Genome Center in Lower Manhattan. J&J is one of the biggest biopharmaceutical companies in the world, and the JLABS platform provides early-stage companies with a “no-strings-attached” arrangement (i.e., there is no first look, no first right of refusal, and no equity assigned to Johnson & Johnson or Janssen). This allows JLABS resident companies to maintain complete entrepreneurial freedom while they focus on scientific innovation. Below is my short BIO Buzz Center video interview with Merton.